Monday, August 17, 2009

Tennis Racquet Bug Zapper

The mosquitoes come out in force here during the summer and are a little different from the ones back home. Mosquitoes in Australia tend to have stripey legs and a more rigid posture. Korean mosquitoes are better at evasion and bite multiple times. A single mosquito left undealt with in the room will leave a series of bites that last a few days. Often times I'll wake up to a buzzing sound and turn on the light in the middle of the night, only to find with dismay that the miniscule perpetuator is hiding somewhere. Sure enough, when the light cautiously goes off a short while later, the crafty femme will pop out once more (only female mosquitoes drink blood).

Call me old fashioned, but I think there's nothing more reliable than a good hand swat to pancake the critters. Korean bug spray, known as F-Killer, seems more deadly than your standard Raid or Mortein. While a volley of Mortein will often make insects go a little crazy for a while, before prolonging their doom in convulsive throes of death, F-Killer tends to knock them out of the sky instantly. Which probably means that it isn't too healthy for us either. In the picture above is a third option often sold here by ajummas in the subway stations, who will spark them constantly to attract customers. They're electrified tennis racquets and if you swipe at a flying insect with it, they get zapped like a taser.